My wife takes the phone out of its case—just looking. I can’t remember why. Maybe she does it every now and then, just to check. But then she looks at the back, and gives a shiver. A little shiver.
A pause.
What is this?
I come over. I’m the so-called perfectionist of the house. She says she doesn’t recall it ever falling. Our daughter didn’t throw it. Nobody slammed it. But there it is—a crack.
A stress line across the back glass. Not a surface crack—the glass is smooth to the touch—but within. Held inside like something snapped in its soul. Something. From just below the camera bump, thin lines, really, internal grooves, radiating out like a burst, beautiful in the worst way—rays of fracture spreading top, bottom, everywhere.
A quiet detonation frozen in glass.
The phone still works. But it’s done. The back panel, if it’s even replaceable, will cost a small country. How much does a small country cost?
This is an iPhone 11 Pro—the one that still had a bit of grip. Not much, but some. Some we could accept. The 5, the 6, the 7—they all felt small enough to hold, to trust. Even the older Galaxies (yeah, the Samsung ones) were better in hand. But then, year by year, they all started losing grip. Flat, square, slippery. Glass gone wrong. Done wrong? Or just the way it should be?
And reviewers—God bless them—just wave it off. You’re going to use a case anyway.
They say it like a law of nature. As if that excuses everything.
As if fragility is now a feature. Or is it?
Phones today are all glare and glass—Apple, Samsung, everyone. Fragile, heavier, bulkier. The only bold ones left are those who dare to use them naked.
But cases—cases kill phones slowly.
They trap heat. They don’t breathe. The phone warms, can’t exhale, holds its own fever. That’s what happened here—I’m sure. Heat stress. That’s it.
Because phones generate heat—that’s what a computer does—but the case keeps it in. Plastic, leather, whatever. It builds and builds. The glass holds, the metal holds, and then one day it gives. A crack with no drop, no impact. Just physics.
And you, dear Apple—you know this. Samsung knows. Google too, though maybe they pretend otherwise. Yet none of you will design for hands again. Or? None will make a phone that can breathe, that can live bare. Just be.
Because the case industry is now a quiet dependency. A whole economy around the failure to hold (the phone by hand, like we always did). Planned fragility sold as protection. Another small, perfect loop of capitalism—build the flaw, sell the fix, and call it design.
Build the flaw. Sell the fix. Call it design.
Phones should not need cases. Period.
They should be grippable. They should dissipate heat by design. They should be built to touch—bare skin on bodywork. Because that’s what makes them alive. Feel good. A phone is supposed to live in your hand, not in a plastic terrarium.
And yet here we are—slipping, cracking, replacing. Paying again (and again) for the privilege of the same mistake. Listen, it’s iPhone—they’ll still buy it! God, they do!
Is it deliberate? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe someone deep in the design temple says—people upgrade faster if the glass gives. Yeah. Who knows?
Who’s gonna listen anyway?